The Morning After
by Avari20
Summary: Post Hogwarts, OneShot: Draco has always been a playboy, but everything changes after one night with her...complete


_**Disclaimer: I own neither of the main characters.**_

_**Author's Note: This fic was written for and given to Sage, who decided that it needed to be shared. **_

**The Morning After**

"You told me you loved me," he hissed, grabbing her by the arm and swinging her back to face him. His eyes accused her silently.

Hermione didn't lose her stubborn expression. "No, I didn't," she denied. "I never said those words to you."

Draco's grip tightened convulsively. He wanted to shake her until that mutinous look melted away from her face. He wanted her to look just as she had last night, eyes wide and mouth open as she gasped against the pleasure he gave her. Now that look was a million miles away; in its place was an expression as cold as the light of morning. How dare she? He seethed with emotions that wrapped themselves up in one another and grew by leaps and bounds. How dare she act so aloof when he had just experienced the most incredible, passionate, emotionally explosive night in his entire life?

He wouldn't let her brush him off like this. He dragged her closer, away from the door and the outside world. They were almost nose to nose when he glared at her. "Maybe you didn't say the words, but you made love to me last night, Hermione."

She opened her mouth, but he barreled on. "You're a liar if you try to deny it. I didn't fck you, and we didn't just have sex. I've done enough of both to know the difference. It was love-making."

Hermione looked extremely annoyed with him. Doubtless she'd expected a brief parting with minimal fuss before she ran back to her cozy little cubicle at the Ministry, Draco thought with a sneer. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, defiant. "So what?" she asked flippantly. "Who cares if what happened last night was different? It's done. Thank you for making my first time so pleasurable, but I have to-"

"What the fck are you playing at, Hermione?" Draco broke in heatedly. "I told you last night that if we went through with it, then I would never let you go. I meant what I said. You can't just use me like some kind of bloody _cherry picker_-" he spat it out like it left him with a foul taste in his mouth- "-and then walk out with a little 'thank you'!"

"What do you want from me? You knew-"

"The hell I did! Were you listening to me at all? You came to me and acted like you cared about more than just a one-night stand."

"I never said--"

"Damn you, Hermione! You know how it looked! I love you, and I want us to--" Hermione's smile cut him off. At first he thought it was a smile of joy. Merlin knew he wanted it to be so. But this smile was too slow…too smug to be happy. Something distinctly unpleasant began to gleam in her eyes that made Draco's stomach twist. He eyed her with growing dread. That gleam looked decidedly…triumphant. "Why are you smiling?"

"Draco." She drew out his name with blatant relish. "Do you remember Rachel?"

The last thing Draco had expected her to do was bring up her co-worker at a time like this. He looked at her in bewilderment. Hermione's smile didn't dim in the face of his confusion, but grew. "Perhaps Penny? Or Christina. Or even Blanche, Theresa, Lydia…"

With every new name Draco's hopes sank lower. All were women she worked with. Women he'd slept with.

"They were my friends, Draco. Good women that I care about. You used them all for kicks while you let them believe it was something more than sex. You encouraged them to fall for you. And then you threw them away like an old toy once you got yours." She leaned in, smiling that vicious little smile at him. Draco's heart constricted and screamed out against what he knew was happening. His throat worked convulsively, but he couldn't find any words. Nothing to excuse his actions, to make her forget his transgressions, to convince her of his nonexistent innocence.

She drew a finger lazily along his jaw line, a move he vaguely recognized as copied from the latest breakup. He felt like crying as hard as Lydia had done. "Tell me, Draco," Hermione drawled. "How does it feel to be played?"

He couldn't do anything but watch her walk away then. He knew that he would never see her again. Draco also knew that she had done her job quite thoroughly. He was deeply in love--and she didn't care. She had laughed at him as he had laughed at all the others. She had used him as he had used so many women.

Draco stared numbly into the air where she had stood. For a long time he was unable to move. He was defenseless. Raw. Exposed. Bleeding.

So this was what a broken heart felt like.

The End

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